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Abstract

interview rather than an easy conversation. There’s always an agenda, and sometimes that agenda clouds the issue. People don’t tell us what we need to know, only what we want to hear.</p><p id="63a0">I once spent an evening out to dinner with a man who was so emotionally unregulated that I wasn’t sure I would safely escape the date. This person needed intensive therapy, not a girlfriend. It was one of the few nights where I didn’t have children at home with a babysitter. It was a rare night out, and I couldn’t enjoy the delicious tacos and margaritas while the human in front of me spiraled. By the time I was driving home, all I could think about were all the ways I could have spent the evening.</p><p id="218f">I know that’s not what we think about when a date turns out to be magical. But I’m not over here finding any magic other than the kind I create for myself. Dating hasn’t been magical. It’s been anxiety-provoking and tedious. I’m open to love. I’m just not that interested in looking for it.</p><h1 id="a9b0">Must We Look for Love to Find It?</h1><p id="8c47">To be fair, I know that we’re more likely to find things when we’re looking for them. That’s probably true of keys and misplaced glasses. I don’t know if that’s true of love.</p><p id="176e">I feel like we can go into dating set on finding a relationship, so we either choose poorly, jump in too soon, or try to force the wrong fit to be right simply because we’re tired of being single. I don’t know if searching for love is the key to finding it. After all, most people talk about finding it when they aren’t even looking for it. Dating apps want us to believe that we can’t find love unless we’re looking, but they, too, have an agenda.</p><p id="268f">There’s a difference between being open to love and actively seeking it out. I’m not saying one way is right and one way is wrong. Rather, I’m saying that it feels right for me to be open but not searching. I enjoy investing time and energy into my interests. I like building a life without feeling like anything is missing from it. If something does feel missing, it’s usually a plant, not a man.</p><h1 id="4050">Love Is Not a Waste of Time</h1><p id="0250">I don’t believe that love itself is a waste of time. The last time I found it, I wasn’t looking for it. I was happy on my own. But then it was there, and I knew that it wasn’t a waste of my time. Even when it ended, I was grateful to have had it.</p><p id="1b44">I don’t believe that love is a waste of time. I do think that loving the wrong people because we refuse to heed the warning signs can waste our time. I believe that loving someone who doesn’t love us back can be a time suck we often can’t afford. But I don’t think love itself is a waste. It’s precious no matter when we feel it. I just think we need to separate the idea of love from the idea of relationships.</p><p id="dd58">We can love someone and accept that they aren’t right for us. We can love them enough to let them go and find the right connection, leaving us free to do the same. We can love family, friends, and pets. Love isn’t restricted t

Options

o romantic relationships alone.</p><h1 id="357e">Final Thoughts on Being Single</h1><p id="5249">I’m single, and I think about it more because people are constantly reassuring me that I won’t always be alone. I don’t know how to tell them that I don’t feel alone at all. This isn’t loneliness. It’s freedom. It’s joy. It’s a life I’m intentionally creating with every breath.</p><p id="3e92">Love might not be a waste of time, but for me, looking for it certainly feels that way. So, I stopped. I started doing other things instead. I put my energy into new interests. I stopped discounting the value of other kinds of love. I let go of past relationships and felt at peace.</p><p id="9178">I pictured a far different life than the one I have now. I wish I could go back and tell myself that it all works out, but the path to my success and happiness would go through some patches of darkness. I’d tell myself to keep going. To look back only as it serves my healing. To hold onto hope and to know that life’s delights often come in the form of unexpected detours.</p><p id="332b">Did I ever think I would be in my forties, still single, and yet happy? I didn’t. But here I am. I love, I am loved, and my life isn’t missing anything.</p><div id="9291" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-time-capsules-we-never-dug-up-5e9cfacbc099"> <div> <div> <h2>The Time Capsules We Never Dug Up</h2> <div><h3>We put our past in a box and buried it for “someday.”</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*JH2P3RXYjYjcDnmj)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="475a" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-have-a-meaningful-valentines-day-when-you-re-minus-a-plus-one-2097a4bb04bc"> <div> <div> <h2>How to Have a Meaningful Valentine’s Day When You’re Minus A Plus-One</h2> <div><h3>An alternative to feeling bad on the holiday</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*geP5Q2cpSxVTeSZT)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div><div id="2920" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/is-my-reluctance-to-date-wisdom-or-avoidance-fb9a9a55657b"> <div> <div> <h2>Is My Reluctance to Date Wisdom or Avoidance?</h2> <div><h3>A closer look at the why — and why not — of dating.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*jPF0ssONNKcaMCwj)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Is Looking for Love a Waste of Time?

Thoughts on being single.

Everyone seems to have an opinion on your relationship status when you’re single. At least, I’ve found that to be the case. Some assure me that I’m lucky not to be married or in a relationship and others offer encouragement that one day, my prince will come. Even if I didn’t mention waiting for him.

Our culture has cultivated the idea that being single is an unnatural state. People who push this idea will often cite scientific research about the connection between loneliness and poor physical and mental health. They might even talk about how loneliness can shorten the lifespan. That’s all true. It doesn’t take a deep dive into the literature to discover this.

Loneliness: Not Just for Single People

Here’s where I take issue with this argument: The cultural assumption is that single people, by their relationship status alone, are lonely. And, yes, some single people are lonely. But many of us have strong social support. We have family, friends, and interests. It’s possible to be single and not feel lonely all the time — just like it’s possible to be lonely in a relationship.

As I thought more about my interest in my relationship status, I began to consider my own past dating experiences and relationship history. I can guarantee that some of my relationships were far lonelier than being single ever could be. If I’m honest with myself, much of the time I was looking for love, I felt like I was wasting my time.

Is Looking for Love a Waste of Time?

It’s not that I didn’t have hope. It’s not that I had a pessimistic attitude going into it. I would put myself out there and join a dating app only to find that I was spending more time eliminating choices and enduring tedious small talk than I was feeling connected, interested, and engaged in the process. After a mere week of trying, I began to think of all the other things I could be doing with that time. Sometimes, it didn’t even take a week to see that there were far better uses of my energy.

It sounds cynical, I know. It’s not intended that way. It’s just that I’ve learned that it’s possible to build a full life as a single person. I know that a healthy, strong, equitable relationship could enhance the life I’ve built, but it feels exhausting to actively seek one out.

Some people enjoy that engagement. I also like chatting with strangers when it comes to making friends or enjoying an event. I’m the kind of person who can strike up a conversation with anyone. But I don’t enjoy this when dating. It always ends up feeling like an interview rather than an easy conversation. There’s always an agenda, and sometimes that agenda clouds the issue. People don’t tell us what we need to know, only what we want to hear.

I once spent an evening out to dinner with a man who was so emotionally unregulated that I wasn’t sure I would safely escape the date. This person needed intensive therapy, not a girlfriend. It was one of the few nights where I didn’t have children at home with a babysitter. It was a rare night out, and I couldn’t enjoy the delicious tacos and margaritas while the human in front of me spiraled. By the time I was driving home, all I could think about were all the ways I could have spent the evening.

I know that’s not what we think about when a date turns out to be magical. But I’m not over here finding any magic other than the kind I create for myself. Dating hasn’t been magical. It’s been anxiety-provoking and tedious. I’m open to love. I’m just not that interested in looking for it.

Must We Look for Love to Find It?

To be fair, I know that we’re more likely to find things when we’re looking for them. That’s probably true of keys and misplaced glasses. I don’t know if that’s true of love.

I feel like we can go into dating set on finding a relationship, so we either choose poorly, jump in too soon, or try to force the wrong fit to be right simply because we’re tired of being single. I don’t know if searching for love is the key to finding it. After all, most people talk about finding it when they aren’t even looking for it. Dating apps want us to believe that we can’t find love unless we’re looking, but they, too, have an agenda.

There’s a difference between being open to love and actively seeking it out. I’m not saying one way is right and one way is wrong. Rather, I’m saying that it feels right for me to be open but not searching. I enjoy investing time and energy into my interests. I like building a life without feeling like anything is missing from it. If something does feel missing, it’s usually a plant, not a man.

Love Is Not a Waste of Time

I don’t believe that love itself is a waste of time. The last time I found it, I wasn’t looking for it. I was happy on my own. But then it was there, and I knew that it wasn’t a waste of my time. Even when it ended, I was grateful to have had it.

I don’t believe that love is a waste of time. I do think that loving the wrong people because we refuse to heed the warning signs can waste our time. I believe that loving someone who doesn’t love us back can be a time suck we often can’t afford. But I don’t think love itself is a waste. It’s precious no matter when we feel it. I just think we need to separate the idea of love from the idea of relationships.

We can love someone and accept that they aren’t right for us. We can love them enough to let them go and find the right connection, leaving us free to do the same. We can love family, friends, and pets. Love isn’t restricted to romantic relationships alone.

Final Thoughts on Being Single

I’m single, and I think about it more because people are constantly reassuring me that I won’t always be alone. I don’t know how to tell them that I don’t feel alone at all. This isn’t loneliness. It’s freedom. It’s joy. It’s a life I’m intentionally creating with every breath.

Love might not be a waste of time, but for me, looking for it certainly feels that way. So, I stopped. I started doing other things instead. I put my energy into new interests. I stopped discounting the value of other kinds of love. I let go of past relationships and felt at peace.

I pictured a far different life than the one I have now. I wish I could go back and tell myself that it all works out, but the path to my success and happiness would go through some patches of darkness. I’d tell myself to keep going. To look back only as it serves my healing. To hold onto hope and to know that life’s delights often come in the form of unexpected detours.

Did I ever think I would be in my forties, still single, and yet happy? I didn’t. But here I am. I love, I am loved, and my life isn’t missing anything.